et non sapientior

‘Montauk Monster’ Has Hamptons in a Tizzy
What’s brownish-purple, goes to the beach and stinks of rotting flesh?
New York’s celebrity-obsessed Hamptons summer season got even sillier this week when a strange-looking, very dead creature washed up on a beach in Montauk at the far eastern end of New York’s Long Island.

After sleeping it off, Bingley was fine the next morning…
…and escorting a “none-the-wiser” NJ Sue to market.

A passenger traveling on a bus across Canada’s vast Western plains stabbed, gutted and decapitated a man seated next to him in an unexplained attack, a witness told media Thursday.
The victim had been sleeping before he was repeatedly stabbed in the chest by a man with a large knife, witness Garnet Caton told public broadcaster CBC.The other 35 passengers and driver were jolted by “blood-curdling screams” and fled. “He must have stabbed him 50 times or 60 times,” said Caton.
When Caton and two others returned to check on the victim, he said they saw the attacker “cutting the guy’s head off and gutting him.”

“There was a blood-curdling scream. I was just reading my book, and all of a sudden I heard it,” said Garnet Caton, who was sitting in front of the two men.
“It was like something between a dog howling and a baby crying, I guess you could say. I don’t think it will leave me for a while.”

What won’t leave you? The fact that 35 of you ran away from one guy with a knife?

Discovering How Greeks Computed in 100 B.C.
After a closer examination of a surviving marvel of ancient Greek technology known as the Antikythera Mechanism, scientists have found that the device not only predicted solar eclipses but also organized the calendar in the four-year cycles of the Olympiad, forerunner of the modern Olympic Games.
The new findings, reported Wednesday in the journal Nature, also suggested that the mechanism’s concept originated in the colonies of Corinth, possibly Syracuse, on Sicily. The scientists said this implied a likely connection with Archimedes.

WASHINGTON (CNN) — The U.S. Navy fired the captain and executive officer of the aircraft carrier USS George Washington on Wednesday because of a massive fire that damaged the ship in May, Navy officials said.
Capt. David C. Dykhoff and his executive officer, Capt. David M. Dober, were relieved of duty while the ship is in port in San Diego, California, for repairs.
The two were fired because of practices on their ship that Navy investigators believe led to the fire, Navy officials said.

They’re the ones who set the tone for the ship and should be held accountable. Following as it does on the heels of the Air Force shake-up, this will hopefully this will put the fear of God into more Brass. We can’t afford these huge mistakes.

BEIJING: The Chinese government confirmed Wednesday what journalists arriving at the lavishly outfitted media center here had suspected: Contrary to previous assurances by Olympic and government officials, the Internet would be censored during the upcoming games.
…On Wednesday – two weeks after its most recent proclamation of an uncensored Internet during the Summer Games – the International Olympic Committee quietly agreed to some of the limitations, according to Kevan Gosper, chairman of the IOC press commission, Reuters reported.

Salmonella outbreak tied to irrigation water
CDC says it has found ‘smoking gun’ that led to 1,300 people falling ill
The salmonella strain linked to a nationwide outbreak has been found in irrigation water and a serrano pepper at a Mexican farm, federal health officials said Wednesday.

And charge him with assault. I support the cops, but not thugs like this guy. Sure, the Critical Mass people can be complete jerks, but you have to be smoking something pretty illicit to watch this

and not see it as a completely unprovoked assault. I don’t care what the other cyclists may have said to the cop as they rode by; I don’t care what the guy on the bike said; they’re just words.
Of course, the Police Union defends him

…union head Patrick Lynch staunchly defended the officer’s actions and laid the blame directly on the cyclist.
“This officer observed the reckless actions of a specific individual weaving in and out of traffic and creating a hazardous condition for the public and took action,” said Lynch, president of the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association.

Uh-huh. Spin like a cyclist.

Sources said Pogan spotted Long weaving through traffic and riding with just one hand on the handlebars. Pogan yelled at Long to stop and when the cyclist tried to veer around the cop, he leaped into action, Lynch said.
“Instead of slowing down or stopping as any reasonable person would when an officer approached, this rider dropped his shoulder in an attempt to avoid arrest by plowing into the officer’s chest, which resulted in the officer pushing him away,” he said.

That’s a hell of a laugh; I can only hope that he hadn’t seen the tape when he said that bit of fantasy.
Oh, and if you read what this Criminal Complaint he filed, he claims the cyclist knocked him down and injured him! The video clearly shows that to be a lie; what are the penalties for filing a false complaint?
The cyclist got arrested and spent 26 hours in jail; how much do you think the City will end up paying him?

EDMONTON, Alberta (AP) — A chunk of ice spreading across 18 square kilometers (seven square miles) has broken off a Canadian ice shelf in the Arctic, scientists said Tuesday.
… Mueller said the sheet broke away last week from the Ward Hunt Ice Shelf off the north coast of Ellesmere Island in Canada’s far north. He said a crack in the shelf was first spotted in 2002 and a survey this spring found a network of fissures.
The sheet is the biggest piece shed by one of Canada’s six ice shelves since the Ayles shelf broke loose in 2005 from the coast of Ellesmere, about 500 miles from the North Pole.
Formed by accumulating snow and freezing meltwater, ice shelves are large platforms of thick, ancient sea ice that float on the ocean’s surface. Ellesmere Island was once entirely ringed by a single enormous ice shelf that broke up in the early 1900s.

You know, the early 1900s, when people were driving all those, er, and flying in all those, um…
I blame Bush, Samuel Prescott Bush.

House poised to apologize for slavery, Jim Crow
… The resolution will not be the first time lawmakers have apologized to an ethnic group for past injustices.
In April, the Senate passed a resolution sponsored by Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kansas, that apologized to Native Americans for “the many instances of violence, maltreatment and neglect.”
In 1993, the Senate also passed a resolution apologizing for the “illegal overthrow” of the Kingdom of Hawaii in 1893.
In 1988, Congress passed and President Reagan signed a law apologizing to the 120,000 Japanese-Americans who were held in detention camps during World War II. The 60,000 detainees who were alive at the time each received $20,000 from the government.

L.A. wants to clamp yearlong ban on fast food
City Council to vote Tuesday on plan for impoverished southern part of city
In the impoverished neighborhood of South Los Angeles, fast food is the easiest cuisine to find — and that’s a problem for elected officials who see it as an unhealthy source of calories and cholesterol.
The City Council was poised to vote Tuesday on a moratorium on new fast-food restaurants in a swath of the city where a proliferation of such eateries goes hand-in-hand with obesity.

I believe it’s a consumer freedom issue. Since I’m pretty sure most restaurants can’t accept food stamps, it’s a purchase of choice. Now the nanny nazis get to tell those folks where they may spend their few dollars?
If a discrimination lawsuit ever smelled as good as Popeye’s spicy, it would be this one.

The husband of a British doctor shot dead in their honeymoon hotel room is in a critical condition in a coma with a bullet lodged in his brain, police have said.
Benjamin Mullany, a 31-year-old physiotherapist, is in the intensive care unit of the island’s only hospital with injuries including a fractured skull, damage to the spinal cord, brain haemorrhaging and a broken leg, according to sources.
His wife, Catherine, also 31, died instantly after she was shot in the side of the head after an intruder broke into their cottage at the Cocos Hotel in the early hours of Sunday morning.
…Just hours before she was shot dead Mrs Mullany had reportedly sent a text to a friend calling Antigua “beautiful and lush like the Garden of Eden.”
The friend said that the hospital doctor had told her she had “never been happier” at her wedding on July 12. She added: “I can’t talk much, I’m so choked up. Cath had only just texted me to say she was having the best time of her life, and joked about how grown-up she felt being married. I can’t believe she’s gone.”

Some Democratic campaign buttons made for distribution in Idaho show an unlikely pair: Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama and Republican Sen. Larry Craig.
But don’t expect the staunch Republican to throw his support behind Obama or for the presidential candidate to ask Craig to change his mind and run for Senate again. Apparently the button manufacturer picked a picture of the wrong Idaho Larry.

Waving Washingtons can get you in trouble. And just what kind of “change” are they advocating?
Or maybe they’re just “hoping”…

…Black market pets
There’s a black market for dogs, Peterson says. People sell them on the roadside out of vans, at flea markets, or through online classifieds. Craig’s List tries to combat this by banning the sale of pets except for a small adoption fee, but that doesn’t stop some petnappers. A Spanaway, Wash., family recently was reunited earlier this month with their stolen Great Dane after someone posted it for sale on Craig’s list for $150 this month.
Kerwick, the policeman who works with canines, says that while some dogs are targeted for stealing, most dog thefts are crimes of opportunity. “The average guy doesn’t wake up in the morning and think about stealing a dog for a family member or himself, but the dog is there, there’s no one watching, and they take him,” he says.

What it DoesThe Global Poverty Act:
• Declares it official U.S. policy to promote the reduction of global
poverty, the elimination of extreme global poverty, and the
achievement of the Millennium Development Goal of cutting extreme
global poverty in half by 2015.
• Requires the President to develop and implement a comprehensive
strategy to carry out that policy.
• Includes guidelines for what the strategy should include – from aid,
trade, and debt relief, to working with the international community,
businesses and NGOs, to ensuring environmental sustainability.
• Requires that the President’s strategy include specific and
measurable goals, efforts to be undertaken, benchmarks, and
timetables.
• Requires the President to report back to Congress on progress
made in the implementation of the global poverty strategy.

Obama’s Global Tax Proposal Up for Senate Vote
AIM Column | By Cliff Kincaid | February 12, 2008
It appears the Senate version is being pushed not only by Biden and Obama, a member of the committee, but Lugar, the ranking Republican member.
A nice-sounding bill called the “Global Poverty Act,” sponsored by Democratic presidential candidate and Senator Barack Obama, is up for a Senate vote on Thursday and could result in the imposition of a global tax on the United States. The bill, which has the support of many liberal religious groups, makes levels of U.S. foreign aid spending subservient to the dictates of the United Nations.
Senator Joe Biden, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has not endorsed either Senator Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton in the presidential race. But on Thursday, February 14, he is trying to rush Obama’s “Global Poverty Act” (S.2433) through his committee. The legislation would commit the U.S. to spending 0.7 percent of gross national product on foreign aid, which amounts to a phenomenal 13-year total of $845 billion over and above what the U.S. already spends.The bill, which is item number four on the committee’s business meeting agenda, passed the House by a voice vote last year because most members didn’t realize what was in it. Congressional sponsors have been careful not to calculate the amount of foreign aid spending that it would require. According to the website of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, no hearings have been held on the Obama bill in that body.

(It’s: “Added to calendar on Apr 24, 2008: Placed on Senate Legislative Calendar under General Orders. Calendar No. 718” after “Apr 24, 2008: Committee on Foreign Relations. Reported by Senator Biden with amendments and an amendment to the title.“)
Hmmm. THAT site has an agenda, because it has all anti-liberal ads on it. (And Glenn Beck’s take is funnier anyway.) Let’s be fair and balanced.
Wiki says “it’s LIES!!!! All LIES!!!!”

A number of news outlets have made false reports about this bill and called it Global Poverty Tax.

I KNEW it could only be good for us. And the world. And the children.
*Many thanks to ee-ville genius ebola for the Mary make-over.

“I recount all this now because it illustrates the perverse nature of Fannie and Freddie that has made them such a relentless and untouchable political force. Their unique clout derives from a combination of liberal ideology and private profit. . . . The abiding lesson here is what happens when you combine private property with government power. You create political monsters that are protected both by journalists on the left and pseudo capitalists on Wall Street, by liberal Democrats and country club Republicans. Even now, after all the dishonesty and failure, Fannie and Freddie could emerge from this taxpayer rescue more powerful than ever.”

Remember when I was upset about Iran having 3000 centrifuges? No? Well, you’re right; I shouldn’t have been worried, because Ahmalamadingdong said I shouldn’t.
So if 3,000 are fine for World Peace, then, hell, 6,000 should usher in a New Era of Peace and Prosperity

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) – Iran’s president said Saturday his country now possesses 6,000 centrifuges, a significant increase in its nuclear program that is certain to further rankle the United States and others who fear Tehran is intent on developing weapons.
The new figure is double the 3,000 uranium-enriching machines Iran had previously said it was operating.

Now, Iran claims these are for ‘peaceful purposes,’ which nice people in the West assume to mean power plants; no bombs, really.
Except that what the centrifuges are producing can’t be used in the nuclear plants that Iran has.
It can, of course, be used in nuclear bombs, but as Iran has said they aren’t making them we, as the Europeans have, should discard that possibility and, er, write them a stern letter or something to make them change their ways.

…ANDREW TYNDALL, The Tyndall Report: Well, the thing I think that really emphasizes Tom’s point about it being treated as a head-of-state trip rather than a candidate trip was the extraordinary decision by the broadcast networks to send their anchors along to interview him on the way. It’s entirely unprecedented that a premier candidate should be treated with this type of coverage. That really is reserved for heads of state. And even though I think the tone of the interviewing was actually really quite hard-edged by all three anchors, the fact that they sort of dignified this trip with their presence had a little smell of a coronation about it really before the election has actually happened.